Wii fun...

While I was visiting my sister in Chicago, she purchased her husband Nintendo's new "Wii" game system for his birthday. Being a reticent gamer already (I got rid of the original Nintendo just five years ago and we have a Playstation... first version), I wondered what the draw was of this newer, selling like hotcakes, set up. I am not against video games (I personally can spend hours playing solitaire type games on the computer, and used to be highly addicted to Nintendo's Dr. Mario...) but I do notice how isolating they are, and I try to keep a limit on my children's time spent staring at the screen playing in parallel lives versus interacting.

Well, Wii has changed my perception a bit. Not only is it fabulously fun to create the faces and bodies of each family member (I have to tell you, some of the characters were such close caricatures), but it is actually interactive! Truly a great shift from the current norm. I watched the boys and their dad play before leaving Chicago, but didn't get a chance to experience the gaming fully since it arrived the day before my departure. However, my sister brought it to Hilton Head and we all got a turn in the fun.

The game comes with a sports program - golf, tennis, baseball, bowling. You are actually holding the remote and swinging arms and legs in the way your character needs to move to create the hit/bowl/pitch/swing. There is more physical movement than just fingers and thumbs - it is a standing, full body game. We rotated sports and players - up to four per game - so everyone in our family old enough (e.g. five and above) got a chance. Eleven kids (three were too young), two college students, and eight adults played at various levels. I bowled against my dad and brother and had a blast. Of course, smoking them helped me laugh through the experience, but I think I would have been delighted regardless. It was truly FUN. We had a cheering section, a coaching section, and lots of laughs and encouragement of one another. I have never previously experienced this type of interaction with video games.

Am I going to purchase one for my family?? No, probably not. I will continue to be the "mean and boring mom" who prefers my children to play outside, tromp through the woods, build forts, use imagination, and stay off the television...but I will say that I can easily see the draw and would enjoy playing if we owned one. The addiction compulsion and bickering about playing is still there - whose turn, who gets to choose, etc. This is something I have always steered away from with the kids, but the interaction and semblance of sportsmanship and teamwork is great. The only drawback I can see is that now that the game is so popular, Nintendo has decided to go ahead and evolve a mature rating game to participate on this system. See plugged in online for details. Too bad. This one is a great opportunity for clean family fun; it didn't need to dive into our immoral culture. But, that is our world's capitalism, I suppose...What a shame.